The Altaf Manzil Building caved in Monday evening after heavy rains lashed the city.

Locals Blame Construction

The cause of the tragic collapse was not immediately available Tuesday.

However, locals claim that structural alterations being made to the building’s ground floor, where a Maruti car showroom was located, caused the building to give way, numerous reports said.

Rakeshpate / Wikimedia Commons

There is a huge demand for housing in Mumbai, and corruption often leads to unsafe building construction, reports say. The city has had at least two recent building collapses.

City officials had determined that 946 buildings in the city were unsafe in a pre-monsoon survey, according to NDTV.com; however, the structure that toppled Monday was not on the list.

Previous Collapse Killed 74

The recent incident follows a previous collapse in the city that killed 74 people back in April. The building involved in that collapse was an illegally constructed high-rise residential building, reports said.

Nine people, including builders, police officers and municipality authorities were arrested in connection with that incident, according to reports.

There is a huge demand for housing in India, and corruption often leads to cost-cutting, the use of inadequate building materials, and unsafe construction, according to the BBC.

Watch Dog® Wipe Out Porous Surface Graffiti Remover
is formulated to effectively and easily remove existing graffiti from porous/unpainted masonry surfaces 15-30 minutes without surface damage while being both safe for the applicator and friendly to the environment.